My husband has been keen to try his hand at making sausages for years - so we finally decided to give it a go. I mean, how hard could it be? Well... a lot harder than we thought as it turned out!
I tracked down some sausage casing - and found that this doesn't come in handy home-experiment lengths! I had to buy a package of 50 metres of salted white tubing. There seemed to be miles of the stuff!
We minced up our meat with some herbs and seasonings and chopped off a length of casing. Ready to begin...
The mincer was manual, so it was all hands on deck -
- turning the handle,
- feeding in the "sausage meat" mix,
- keeping the casing on the nozzle,
- encouraging the mix to fill the casing
- and then twisting between the sausages.
Anyway, after an absolute AGE, we finally produced enough sausages for a meal.
Off to the barbecue to taste the fruits of our labours.
It all started nicely... and then, suddenly they all burst out of the casings!
Not pretty!
End result - the meat tasted lovely but the casings were horribly chewy and I confess to picking mine off and discarding them!
There's obviously much more to the art of successful sausage making that meets the eye! Though our experiment was fun and we had lots of laughs along the way, I'm sticking to making "skinless" sausages from now on!
How about you? Had any interesting culinary adventures you'd like to share?
Oh Sharon I would have been rolling around laughing at least they tasted nice I often pick the casing of the sausages I buy anyway because it is a bit chewy. Many years ago I decided to try making beef stongonoff I had never made it before and had a fancy receipe to go by but I put way too much sour cream in it and neither of us could eat it LOL and to this day I have never tried to make it again and hubby often brings it up :)
ReplyDeleteHave Fun
Helen
Helen, we laughed heaps with our sausage making experiment. They came out looking rather grotesque but we managed to squeeze them in more sausagy shape - still pretty unattractive though, aren't they!
ReplyDeleteLOL on your beef stroganoff! I know it's lovely when it's made properly but it's obviously a bit tricky! Still sometimes those meals that don't work out they way they're supposed to make for great shared jokes!
LOL Sharon- at least they tasted nice! Baking, for me, is an endless culinary disaster- I just can't do it. Cakes/cupcakes/muffins- anything like that are always too stodgy or never rise...my biscuits always spread into one huge mess... I've just given up. Now, if I ask my boys if they want a birthday cake they always say- 'Yes, please- but from the shop!'
ReplyDeleteToo true, Louisa! After all the time we spent fiddling about with the darned things it would have been awful if they'd tasted as bad as they looked!
DeleteHugs on your baking prowess! Oooo, and your boys are so wicked! LOL Hopefully, they say that with kindness and diplomacy and suggest that your valuable time is much better spent doing things other than slaving over a hot stove!
;)
Ooh, I love sausages, but I've never been tempted to make them. And now I'm even less tempted, Sharon, LOL. Mind you, before they were cooked I thought they looked very professional. :-)
ReplyDeleteI twice tried to make custard in the microwave and both times it bounced like rubber and was completely inedible. I must be due for another try. A culinary disaster that always made me laugh, though, was when beau of my sister's interpreted a clove of garlic to mean the entire head. They weren't quite able to get through the spaghetti bolognese he'd made. ;-)
Michelle, I think this sausage-making thing might be a good lesson to learn by example rather than first hand experience! Mind you, we have a friend who does make his own sausages so he's offered to take dh under his wing for some proper tips!
DeleteOoo, I love the rubber custard story! LOL AND the garlic spaghetti! They wouldn't have had to worry about vampires for months!
Sharon, we're quite adventurous in the kitchen, so it's not uncommon for us to have a disaster. But if we didn't risk the disaster we wouldn't have the successes. Those successes make it all worthwhile. :)
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right, Rachel! The culinary successes do make it all worthwhile - and those failures, especially the spectacular ones, are pretty darned good for a laugh, aren't they! :D
DeleteSharon, I'm laughing fit to bust here. Love your story. I bought a pasta making machine the other day and now you've got me worried. Could get all sorts of shapes. Worst cooking disaster lately - shortbread that needed an axe to break. My shortbread making is usually very successful so I'm putting this batch down to the fact I wasn't wearing my glasses when I checked over the recipe. I also tend to follow a recipe word for word first time round, and then every other time I get further and further away from the original, until I go too far.
ReplyDeleteLOL, Sue! Glad you enjoyed our kitchen story!
ReplyDeleteAh, homemade pasta! You'll love it! It's just it's very time consuming. And make sure you keep pets away from it while it's drying. I made a batch and hung it over the clothes-horse to allow the strands to dry.... and a while later, found our dear old Sally (dog) snacking on the ends! I guess she liked it too! LOL
Oh, sad about the shortbread! yes, to wearing glasses to reading recipes!